A goon show. That’s what Paul Keating called it in March last year. ASIO chief and Performance Artist Mike Burgess, a Marina Abramović in drag, runs political theatre dressed as national security, kneecaps the Albanese government’s China diplomacy with strategically timed intelligence bombshells.

Fast forward to this week.

November 4, 2025. The Lowy Institute. (Lowy is like if DFAT + Treasury + ASPI had a slightly more urbane child that all three parents wanted to be taken seriously in Washington.)

Mike Burgess is back with another cloak and dagger show. ASIO’s annual moral panic matinee.

This time it’s a bravura performance: foreign spies caught in a cunning ASIO sting. Pro-Russian social media influencers “almost certainly” taking Kremlin directives. Three countries “willing and capable” of assassinating political dissidents on Australian soil. And the punchline:

“When the intelligence officers arrived at the location, they were not met by their target, they were met by an ASIO officer.”

Shit a brick. You’re nicked, Nikita. So dramatic. Better show than our knackered ABC these days.

Keating’s “goon show” comment still holds marvellous truth. Of course. And nobody has dared contest it. The play he called out has just been repeated with reliable press drops to SBS and agencies familiar with the drill, only too happy to run with whatever ASIO provides for public consumption.

The Kabuki Theatre Continues

When a former Labor PM who’s a black belt in evisceration calls you out, something’s crook. In March 2024, Keating nailed it: Burgess drops unverifiable spy revelations, Fairfax miraculously “solves” the mystery (China, always China), and suddenly diplomatic options narrow without anyone deciding anything.

Don’t argue your opponent down. Define them down. Precision-tooled humiliation. Burgess never recovered.

But the show must go on. Now we’ve got the 2025 version. You wouldn’t read about it. Foreign intelligence officers caught red-handed. Except we don’t know which country, though Burgess helpfully notes they claim they “don’t spy on Australia.” No charges laid. No prosecutions. No names. Just insinuation and enough ambiguity to keep everyone nervous while reinforcing the plot that hostile powers are everywhere and ASIO is all that stands between us and chaos.

This is intelligence work as public performance. Bravo. Security assessment as political messaging.

Watch how it works. Burgess drops his bombshell. Media run it breathlessly. Politicians can’t be seen questioning it without looking piss-weak on national security. China hawks in the Coalition holler for government action. Labor defends ASIO to beef itself up on keeping us all safe in our beds. And suddenly the entire political spectrum has shifted rightward without anyone making an actual decision.

That’s not intelligence work. That’s political manipulation with a security clearance.

It’s muscle memory now. Burgess speaks, reporters type, politicians nod gravely, and the show rolls on. Nobody asks awkward questions because asking makes you look dim or dodgy. So everyone plays their part and we all pretend it’s democracy in action.

The Resident Conjurer Returns

Keating’s choice of words matters. Always. “Resident conjurer.” “Goon show.” These aren’t throwaway insults. They’re accusations of illegitimacy. Not questioning Burgess’s competence, but whether ASIO operates as an independent intelligence agency or as an extension of American strategic interests wearing an Australian badge.

Consider the latest Lowy Lecture revelations. Part Spook Theatre. Part PR ride-on mower. Burgess warns that authoritarian regimes are becoming “increasingly reckless” (bastards) and there’s a “realistic prospect” of assassination attempts on Australian soil. He reveals ASIO is investigating pro-Russian social media influencers, Muscovy Ducks(?) who “deliberately hide their connection to Moscow.”

He links National Socialist Network (who’d struggle to field a mixed netball team) with Hizb ut-Tahrir, codes pro-Palestinian activism as extremism, and warns of assassination threats. Russia primary threat. China obsessive focus (as detailed in his July 2025 speech about the $12.5 billion cost of foreign spying). Far right carefully balanced.

This isn’t intelligence assessment. It’s American strategic priorities with an Australian accent.

Keating got it right in 2024: “These people display utter contempt for the so-called stabilisation process that the Prime Minister had decided upon and has progressed with China. And will do anything to destabilise any meaningful rapprochement.”

The security establishment is running its own foreign policy. Out of Washington’s CIA-GCHQ mosh pit. Mossad? Nothing to do with it. And it doesn’t give a damn what the elected government wants.

The Missing Prosecutions

Here’s what to make of all this: actual prosecutions are scarce as rocking horse shit. The “traitor politician” in 2024? Not charged. This week’s caught spies? No charges. Russian influencers? Under investigation, no evidence.

Burgess claims prosecution would compromise sources. Maybe. Or maybe accusations are overcooked and wouldn’t survive court scrutiny.

We don’t know. Can’t know. Never goes to trial.

What we get instead is public accusation without accountability, insinuation without evidence, threat assessment without verification. Intelligence as political theatre rather than prosecutable fact.

That’s what Keating means by “goon show.” Not intelligence work. Performance art. It’s political theatre masquerading as national security. And we’re expected to cop it without question. We lap it up.

The Labor Dilemma

Keating said Albanese should have “cleaned out” security leadership. Labor didn’t. Can’t. Sacking them for being “too tough on China” is political suicide.

When Keating attacked, Penny Wong responded: “Mr Keating is entitled to his view, but the government is focused on how we work with countries in the region to encourage peace, stability, and prosperity.”

Notice what’s missing? No acknowledgment that intelligence releases timed for maximum political impact might be institutional overreach. Labor can’t have that conversation. It would mean admitting the security establishment has its own agenda. Acts like it owns the joint. It does.

That’s not governing. That’s being managed.

The Security Establishment Burgess Represents

Before ASIO, Burgess ran the Australian Signals Directorate. He’s a Five Eyes creature through and through. And Five Eyes isn’t just information sharing. It’s strategic alignment, operational integration, ideological synchronisation around threat perception.

When Burgess warns about Chinese espionage or Russian influence operations, he’s amplifying a narrative shaped by the CIA, NSA, MI6, and the broader American intelligence apparatus. The threats he identifies align seamlessly with Pentagon assessments and State Department priorities.

That’s not conspiracy theory. That’s how Five Eyes functions. Shared intelligence infrastructure. Shared analysis frameworks. Shared assumptions about who constitutes threats.

The problem? Australia doesn’t live in Washington. We live in Southeast Asia. China is our largest trading partner, our dominant regional power, and a geographic reality that can’t be wished away by threat assessments delivered at think tank lectures. But try telling that to Five Eyes.

Why This Matters

If Keating’s right, if our security establishment runs foreign policy according to American priorities rather than Australian interests, we’re not a sovereign nation. We’re a security protectorate with democratic window dressing.

Here’s how it’s supposed to work: We elect a government. That government sets policy. Intelligence informs those decisions, doesn’t make them. Civilian control. Basic democracy.

That’s not what we’ve got. What we’ve got is security agencies defining threats, constraining options, forcing governments to adopt positions they might not otherwise choose.

The Questions Nobody’s Asking

Which country’s spies got caught? Which influencers are Kremlin assets? Which three countries plan assassinations? Why the vagueness?

Here’s the real question: Who benefits from locking Australia into confrontation with its largest trading partner?

Not our businesses, exporters, universities. The beneficiaries are in Washington and Pine Gap. The ones whose budgets depend on threat inflation, whose power depends on keeping us afraid.

That’s who wins when we’re kept perpetually nervous about enemies at the gates.

The Uncomfortable Truth

Here’s what’s awkward: Keating might be right about intelligence overreach and American domination, and simultaneously wrong about Chinese and Russian challenges. Both can be true.

Foreign interference exists. Espionage is real. Authoritarian regimes do pose challenges.

But it’s also true that our security establishment treats legitimate diplomatic engagement as suspicious, conflates criticism of American policy with disloyalty, and systematically forecloses policy options that might serve Australian interests but complicate Five Eyes solidarity.

The mature position isn’t Keating’s defense of Chinese legitimacy or Burgess’s securitisation of everything. It’s somewhere in between, managing complex relationships with both superpowers while maintaining genuine strategic autonomy.

But we can’t get there if intelligence agencies run foreign policy and elected governments are too constrained to push back.

The Bottom Line

When Keating calls it a goon show, he’s asking who runs Australian foreign policy.

When Burgess delivers spy revelations without charges, he’s constraining diplomatic options.

When Labor defends Burgess while pursuing China stabilisation, they’re revealing their capture.

And when the press reports each revelation without questioning the pattern, they’re completing the circle.

But at least the Lowy Lecture was dramatic. The spy-catching story had everything. You’ve got to give him that. The man knows how to work a room.

The show must go on. And it does. Again and again. The pattern Keating identified in March 2024 just repeated itself. And will repeat again. Because nobody in government, media, or parliament will dare call it what it is.

A goon show. Still running. Still unchallenged. Still shaping Australian foreign policy one dramatic revelation at a time.

And Keating’s the only one with the guts to call it what it is.

Which tells you everything you need to know about the state of Australian democracy in 2025.